Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice!!! Yeah…. I wasn´t even born when this movie came out. But i have strong memories of it.You know when you are little and you see a movie, but you don´t fully understand it? Yeah, this happened to me with Beetlejuice. I saw it very early in life, and to be completley honest i didn´t understand it at all back then, the only thing that my mind remembered about this movie was the clothing.

Maybe it was a sign, that i should be interested in costume design as an adult, i don´t know, but i vividly remember Beetlejuice´s outfitt. The iconic striped suit, the gray “all over the place” hair, the black liner and pale face. It wasn´t until i saw it again in my twenties that i understood the story behind Beetlejuice.

Let me give you some context, for those who haven´t seen this movie. First of all, it was directed by Tim Burton, so as you can expect, it´s gonna be a freaky ride. But i digress…

Adam and Barbara are a normal couple…who happen to be dead. They have given their precious time to decorate the house and make it their own, but unfortunately a family is moving in, and not quietly. Adam and Barbara try to scare them out, and they call upon Beetlejuice to help, but Beetlejuice has more in mind than just helping. The good stuff starts when the new home-owners photographer daughter Lydia (Winona Ryder) gets pulled into the afterlife, you see, Lydia is the only person who can see or communicate with the deceased. I wont be telling more about the story, i need you to see it, you wont regret it.

When you know a movie is about ghosts and afterlife, you usually expect horror, scary scenes, “The Walking Dead” kind of dead. But Tim Burton showed us a new dead, funny world, a world worth watching.

Being a Tim Burton´s film, you expect weird creatures, weirder characters and awesome costumes. So we have this character of Lydia (Winona Ryder), who is a photographer, and a goth. The term “Goth” was really weird at that time, making it one of the awesome things about this movie. It shows a girl obsessed with coffins, black, death and she is not very cheerful. She wears black outfitts and she is considered very very weird, and she looks the part.

Who knew we had been watching a star on the rise on this particular movie right? But more on Beetlejuice please… Beetlejuice’s character is wise cracking con-artist. According to Michael Keaton, the Beetlejuice character was described to him by Tim Burton as “having lived in every time period but no time period.” Keaton used this as the jumping-off point to create the character with such features as a shock hairdo, mold makeup, and large teeth.

There is this scene in this movie that you absolutely have to watch!! It´s a wedding scene, but not a “Twilight Bella/Edward scene”. It´s way better!!!! Lydia (Winona Ryder) wears a bright red dress according to the old rhyme about wedding dress colors, it’s “Married in red, better off dead.” Perfect fit for the movie!!

There is no detail in this movie that anyone would consider random. The undead have all the features that describe the way they died. For example:

This “Miss Argentina” shows her suicidal cuts on her wrists. When you watch this movie make sure you pay attention to all the undead, the amount of details will shock you! And i know this blog is about costume design, but you also have to appreciate the make up. I have to say that this movie has an amazing makeup and costume balance!